Posts Tagged ‘Riffs’

Fireblood – Goatslayer

Posted: 1 December 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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ROT ROOM – 6th December 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Super-spiky, not-really-legible font? Check. White on black cover art? Check. Goats galore? Check: in the title and on the cover. This is going to be some gnarly metal din, right? Right. Sometimes, you can judge a book – or a record – by its cover.

Goatslayer is the second EP of 2024 for North Carolina ‘southern-fried sludge quartet’ Fireblood, following the Hellalujah EP, released in April.

They promise a work which ‘take[s] the genre in a somehow meaner, more extreme direction, they employ massive atonal guitars, booming drums, and churning low end to create a caustic, thick-as-molasses sound that has a physical weight to its thunderous mid-tempo grooves. Lumbering ever forward, each stomping beat comes laden with the threat of eruption, and when the top does blow it’s an explosion of seething rage.’

While I wasn’t aware that theirs was a specific genre, I’m on board with this, not least of all because the EPs four tracks are magnificently mangled, feedback-strewn heavy as hell riff-fests with an obsession with death.

‘A Perfect Place for Death’ is a lumbering chuggernaut, with overdriven power chords galore and processed, fucked-up vocals which add a deranged psychedelic edge to the purgatorial experience. As much as there are hints of Melvins in the blend, the vocal treatment reminds me of Henry Blacker, knowingly over the top and uncommonly high in the mix, but everything congeals into a thick black tarry sonic soup. ‘Death Comes Rolling’ thunders in hard, beating its chest and stamping its feet against an industrial-strength riff and roaring, glass ‘n’ gasolene gargling vocals. It ain’t pretty: it’s not supposed to be. It’s not subtle, either, but again, it’s not supposed to be.

They slow the pace to a crawl on the trudging ‘Burning Underground’, and it very much feel like being dragged by the collar down an endless staircase hewn in rock, the temperature rising as sulphurous lava and eternal flames draw ever closer, before ‘A.I.G.O.D.’ locks into a relentless and powerful groove, and pummels away at a dingy riff for seven and a half punishing minutes. Around halfway through, something twists and suddenly it seems to get even denser, sludgier, heavier, the guitar overload threatening to do damage to your speakers. The long, slow fade comes almost as a relief in easing the cranial pressure. This is a beast, and no mistake.

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The Giraffes – Cigarette

Posted: 8 November 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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27th September 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

They’re pitched as being for fans of, among others, the Jesus Lizard, QOTSA, Earthless, King Gizzard and Lizard Wizard, Fu Manchu, Daughters, and Beak, and their influences are listed as Dick Dale, Black Sabbath, Queens of the Stone Age, David Bowie, Ennio Morricone, Scott Walker, Pink Floyd, Fear, Erkin Koray, and Minute Men. And for those familiar with the band, the fact that Cigarette is their first album in five years is likely to be a cause of excitement.

Citing Daughters has become somewhat tarnished lately, in the wake of allegations against singer Alexis Marshall, which saw the band halting activity and him dropped by this label., but then, there likely a lot of people who aren’t aware of this, and moreover, it seems that even convictions and out of court settlements are no obstacle to becoming president of the United States, so perhaps a lot of people aren’t especially concerned by such things.

I’m not sure what The Giraffes have been up to for the last five years, or how they’ve managed to avoid my radar for the entirety of their career – after all, they formed back in the 90s, and released their debut album in ’98, with Cigarette being their eighth. But this is something that happens a lot: there are simply so many acts out there, it’s impossible to be aware of all of them. But we’re here now.

Some may say that five years is a long time to cook up just seven songs, but quality beats quantity, and Cigarette is solid and consistent in the quality stakes. There’s an abundance of drawling, stoner swagger. If ‘baby Pictures’ makes for a gentle start, they slam on the gas and go pedal-to-the-metal on the riffarola of ‘Pipes’, before ‘Limping Horse’ goes all out on the blues-driven scuzzy rock ‘n’ roll.

‘Dead Bird’ brings the requisite slow-tempo acoustic mid-album breather, and in doing so brings an almost folksy aspect to proceedings, while also strongly reminiscent of Alice in Chains in the harmonies.

Revisiting politically-charged single cut ‘Million Year Old Song’ in context of the album, and realising grimly how much can change in just a few weeks, it clicks that I’m reminded a little of Rollins Band with its sinewy lead guitar work and rant blasting over a low-slung groove.

It closes off with aa couple of six-minute epic sluggers, with ‘The Shot’ starting out with a delicate slow-burn but builds, snaking, smoking, and spun with a dash of flamenco and a swirl of drama into a writing monster of a track, before ‘Lazarus’ provides a worthy finale, with its atmospheric, almost post-rock epic intro that leads into a sultry strut that underlies a contemplation on death delivered in a gritty, Mark Lanegan-esque growl.

There’s a solid, vintage feel to Cigarette – which is to say it’s by no means ground-breaking, but while bands like this were ubiquitous in the ‘90s, now, they’re not so much. It’s not only nostalgia that means I miss them; there’s a place for this kind of chunky, dependable rock ‘n’ roll with a whiff of attitude and the perspiration of graft, and Cigarette is ultimately satisfying.

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Rip Space – Thank These People EP

Posted: 2 September 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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28th June 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

There are many reasons I’ve long been drawn to the obscure, the underground, the DIY – and many of those same reasons are why I try, wherever possible, to use my platform to champion those acts who fall within these broad brackets. And another thing I endeavour to use my platform for is the broader topics which relate to the releases – because during my life, I’ve become acutely aware of just how personal a thing music is, both to artist and listeners.

I suppose I first really tuned into this when I was around the age of fifteen: I’d started getting into goth and alternative stuff when I was twelve or thirteen – back when the weekly singles charts and Top of the Pops rules, and the likes of Killing Joke and The Sisters of Mercy and The Mission would make incursions into these realms – and was getting into live music. None of my mates were into the same stuff, so my choices were, go on my own, or don’t go. I decided I didn’t need my mates, but I did need to see the bands. This essentially set the template for my life, taking a position of a willing outsider.

Not everyone gets to be so willing in the place they find themselves, and while Rip Space’s biographical info is sparse, there’s a clear sense that they’re here as much out of compulsion as choice, describing themselves as an ‘anonymous autistic Scottish multi instrumentalist’. They outline how ‘Thank These People is an EP inspired by the catharsis of overcoming otherisation, public humiliation and otherwise targeted acts of evil that resulted ultimately, in official diagnosis in 2021… So this EP is called Thank These People. We make lemonade from the lemons life gives us. And in ways, we can decide to be thankful for the lemons.’

It’s hard not to find this apparent level of positivity and optimism quite staggering and more than a little overwhelming, as I fight the personal urge not to frame my own experiences as, rather than ‘thank these people’, but ‘fuck these cunts’. Ripspace has already demonstrated that they’re a better, less bitter human being than I before I’ve even heard a note… And then I heard a note, and I love Ripspace all the more. Amidst a roaring blast of lurching, distorted black metal guitars and crashing percussion there’s that anguished vocal howl. This… this is the sound of rage, of fury. Thanks? Yeah, right. This is a throbbing middle finger. This is what you’re thinking, what you want to say but muzzle because you don’t want to rile your boss. Because your boss is a twat.

Thank These People contains just three songs, and has a running time of under ten minutes – meaning it would fit comfortably on a 7” in old currency (when a 7” cost a couple of quid, although I’m not about to embark on a nostalgia trip, not now of all times, when nostalgia for the time of £1 pints costs £350 a ticket).

‘The Green Ripper’ really captures the vibe of Touch & Go and Am Rep in the 90s, but with a keenly Scottish lilt, and transitions from spoken word to full metal fury in a blink. And you feel the fury as it seethes and rages and roars, a pure, splenetic outpouring. ‘Welcome to Mother Earth’ is a noise-rock math-mash thrash-frenzy, Metallica in a three-way high-speed collision with Shellac and And So I Watch You From Afar. Thank These People spits, roars, foams, burns. And I have to agree when they add that ‘also, the music video is really good.’

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WALL – Brick by Brick

Posted: 1 September 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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APF Records – 30th August 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

Perhaps it’s because I listen to and write about a pretty broad range of music, perhaps it’s something else entirely, but sometimes, I just get buzzed by the prospect of some monster riffage. And that’s what’s promised here with WALL’s debut, Brick by Brick.

Their press write-up got me in half a sentence, describing them as ‘An instrumental 2-piece heavy fucking riff machine, built brick by brick & riff by riff by twin brothers and Desert Storm members Ryan & Elliot Cole’ and the news that ‘debut album Brick by Brick is overflowing with unashamed Iommi-worshipping, instrumental, sludge/doom metal.’

There’s some flamboyant fretwork which adds detail – and a hint of extravagance – to the tunes, but in the main, they keep things tight, with pounding percussion and pulverising, full-weight riffery dominating the album from beginning to end.

Some may balk at the absence of vocals, and listening to the big, overdriven guitar heft of the album’s thirteen tracks, most of which pish their way past four minutes, which makes for quite a long album, I did occasionally thing that some throat-ripping larynx work would be of benefit. But then, how many great albums, even great bands, have disappointed with the vocals, for whatever reason? The number of times weak vocals have let down a strong instrumental sound for me is beyond my counting, so on balance, they’re wise to stick with the instrumental duo setup instead of risk diminishing the material.

The band – and album – are appropriately-named. This is just short of an hour’s worth of relentless riffery, and it’s solid. Like, well, a wall, and heavy, like, er, bricks. These may not sound like revelatory statements, but the point is that so many bands promise the world and barely deliver more than few pebbles. WALL hammer our hard riffs, back-to-back.

‘Legion’ is almost buoyant and the intro at least offers a picked guitar line that sits with the turn of the millennium metal sound before big, thick power chords crash in, evoking the spirit of the 70s and then some. ‘Avalanche’ brings with it some busy fingerwork, something which veers toward excess on ‘The Tusk’, but is kept in check for much of the album, thankfully.

There’s not really anything that’s new on Brick by Brick, but this kind of consistent riffology is comforting in a way, and moreover, they don’t disappoint.

There are some nice, atmospheric and pleasantly musical passages to be found along the way, and they clearly understand the power of the dynamic as well as of volume. When they take things down, it reels you in, before slamming on all the pedals and blasting you away with big, big chords. A few tracks feel a bit like filler, but then again, they provide some contrast, which is never a bad thing when an album is very much centred around one specific thing, namely headbanging instrumental riffs.

There are a couple of covers, and one night question the necessity of their inclusion, particularly closing with a Black Sabbath cover (‘Electric Funeral’): the may have been wiser to cut it on the penultimate track, the massive slugger that is ‘Filthy Doner Kebabs on a Gut Full of Lager’, but maybe they just don’t know when they’ve had enough, eh? But for that, this definitely feels like an eight out of ten in terms of delivering what it sets out to.

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Watch: ‘Amor Fati’ by Seeds Of Mary

Posted: 29 August 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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Bordeaux-based rock/metal band Seeds of Mary are back with a powerful new video for ‘Amor Fati,’ the first single from their highly anticipated new album, LOVE, set to be released on October 18th via Klonosphere / Season of Mist.

Directed by Thomas Duphil, the video for ‘Amor Fati’ delivers the big, bottom-heavy riffs that fans have come to expect from Seeds of Mary, coupled with dark and somewhat melancholic choruses.

Watch the video here:

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The band comments: ‘Amor Fati’ is the opening track of the new album. We chose it as the first single because it can be seen as a distillation of what the rest of the record holds: heavy riffs, haunting melodies, and ethereal atmospheres. Lyrically, it has a philosophical approach, drawing on the concept of Amor Fati dear to the Stoics and Nietzsche: ‘love what happens.’ The lyric video, created by our friend Thomas Duphil, features bodies in all their roughness and imperfections. This was the most obvious way for us to talk about self-acceptance, reality, and the trials of a fleeting life that leave their mark on our flesh. Each song on the album LOVE deals with a facet of love. Here, it’s perhaps its most intimate expression. And the fact that this track was written during the Covid period is probably no coincidence. We inevitably found ourselves confronting ourselves a lot during this significant time.”

LOVE, due out on October 18th, promises to be a defining moment in Seeds of Mary’s discography, blending their signature heavy riffs with dark, introspective lyrics and a raw, emotional edge. The album sees the band walking into heavier and darker tunes, incorporating more aggressive and screamed vocals, adding a new dimension to their already dynamic sound.

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Eville – Blood

Posted: 23 August 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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23rd August 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

I’ve been enthusing over Eville for a while now. This is no small thing: in the main, I’m not really big into Nu-Metal. Back in the late 90s, the emergence of Limp Bizkit and KORN didn’t so much leave me cold as cause me to wilt inside, and as time progressed, the emergence of more, ever lamer and more cliché exponents of the genre pushed me deeper into the realms of despondency. Anyone who’s read anything I’ve written over the last decade will know that I’m not one of those middle-aged sad-sacks who bemoans the fact that there hasn’t been any new music worth listening to released since I turned 30. I’m not frozen in time, and I don’t believe that any genre is completely and irredeemably shit. Even Nu-Metal.

Eville are a case in point. One reason Nu-Metal was shit back in the day is because it was so overtly the domain of white blokes. So the prospect of a female-fronted Nu-Metal band changes things for a start, and having seen this ad recently, I have witnessed first-hand their capacity to whip up a frenzy.

And ‘Blood’ sure whips up a frenzy alright. It captures Eville at their absolute best: massive, slugging guitar riffs that punish, and hard, on every level, paired with poppy autotuned vocals and keen, earworm melodies. ‘Blood’ strikes the perfect balance between gut-punching riffage and strong melodic tunage. It does not get better than this, and you really need Eville in your life.

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Orange Goblin – Science, Not Fiction

Posted: 10 August 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Peaceville – 19th July 2024

James Wells

Since their inception as Our Haunted Kingdom in 1995, before transitioning to Orange Goblin and releasing their debut album, Frequencies From Planet Ten in ’97, OG have established themselves as leading exponents of heavy metal thunder.

Science, Not Fiction, explores, as the press pitch puts it, ‘the world as seen through the three fundamental factors; Science, Spirituality, & Religion and how they determine and affect the human condition.’

On the one hand, this is very much hoary old-school metal, with monster riffage cranked up and driving hard with gruff vocals giving it some. But on the other, it’s hoary old-school metal that’s very much more in the Motorhead vein than, say, Iron Maiden. It’s got the heavy swagger of the best of stoner, the monstrous density of slugging, sludgy doom. Fretwanking is kept in check while ball-busting riffery is cranked up to eleven. No shit, this is how it should be done.

‘(Not) Rocket Science’ is exemplary, and brings both the riffs and the cowbell. They sling in some sampled speech on ‘Ascend the Negative’, which offers a solid sense of positivity pushed on by a pounding riff and thunderous percussion. ‘The rich inflate their egos while the poor just foot the bills’, Ben Ward growls on ‘False Hope Diet’, clearly establishing their political position. This enhances my personal appreciation of the band, for certain – but as much as anything because of their up-front engagement with issues, rather than just pumping fists about birds or relationships. That shit just gets tired and has been done to death, as has mystical bollocks for that matter. It ain’t the 70s anymore, man.

Orange Goblin by no means strive to subvert or place a spin on well-established genre tropes: if anything, quite the opposite is true: Science, Not Fiction absolutely revels in them. But, at the same time, in terms of subject matter, Science, Not Fiction is bang-on contemporary and on point.

There’s simply no arguing with this album: Science, Not Fiction is all the meat, there’s no let-up from beginning to end: nothing but riff after riff, delivered with confidence and brute force. Good shit.

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Watch: ‘North Coast Megafauna’ by AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR

Posted: 17 June 2024 in Recommended Streams and Videos, Singles and EPs
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No hype needed: new material from  AND SO I WATCH YOU FROM AFAR. Check it here:

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Kulk – It Gets Worse

Posted: 18 April 2024 in Albums, Reviews
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Human Worth – 20th May 2024

Christopher Nosnibor

The latest album from Norwich based two-piece Kulk, It Gets Worse, arrives two and a half years after the release of We Spare Nothing, described as ‘thunderous and experimental’, and honing their ‘unique and monolithic brand of heavy doom and sludge’.

The timing – and the title – couldn’t be more apt. Just when you were probably thinking we’d endured the absolute worst of life on this planet – from Brexit and Trump via a global pandemic and insane inflation and everything money-related being utterly screwed and still getting more painful by the day after 14 years of a Conservative government – it continues to get worse – half the world is at war, the other half the world is either flooded or in flames, and there are mass killings practically every other week. It’s not, then, simply a nihilistic strapline to grab the attention, but pretty much a demonstrable fact. Things never get better – only worse.

The band articulate both the circumstances and the mood when they frame the album thus: “This album is about the universal suffocating weight of hoping for more while navigating a climate where the apparatus for seeking it is being consistently undermined. What it feels like to not only struggle keeping your head above water but to try jumping out from the deep end without losing your trunks. It is selfish guilt and misplaced woe, desire is a distraction from the world at our feet”.

Bookended by short instrumental intro and outro tracks, ‘More’ and ‘Less’, It Gets Worse packs back-to-back balls-out riff-fests, where the bottom end sounds like a bulldozer and the beats sound like bombs. Whereas a lot of stuff on the doom and sludge spectrum is simply plain slow, Kulk are masters of the tempo shift. ‘A Heavy Sigh’ comes on at pace and builds a real groove, before hitting the breaks around two thirds in, at which point it becomes reminiscent of Melvins. The reason Melvins have endured is that – perhaps despite the popular perception – they’ve showcased a remarkable versatility and an urge to experiment, and it’s here that the comparison stands strongest with Kulk: they’re not just big, dirty riffs and shouting, although they do a first-class job of putting those things up front and centre. ‘Out of Reach’ is a pounding, raging roar of frustration amped up and overdriven to the max, hitting that perfect pitch at which blasting out a repetitive riff at skull-splitting decibels is the ultimate catharsis and the only practical and sane response to the world in which we find ourselves.

Things take a turn with ‘Mammoth’ showcasing a more hardcore bent initially, before descending into a howl of feedback, a noise-rock quasar delivered with the most brutal force. The vocals are barely audible, and then things get ever harder and harsher on ‘Beyond Gone’ which goes full industrial, hammering away at a simple, repetitive chord sequence with murderous fury. You feel your adrenaline pumping as they thunder away, combining pure precision with absolute chaos as feedback swirls and squalls all around like an ear-shattering cyclone.

The slower ‘Fountain’ shows considerable restraint and makes for an oppressive four minutes: it brings a bleak mood, and the hit lands late but hard when the distortion slams in. Getting Adam Sykes of Pigsx7 to play on ‘Life Will Wait’ is a major coup, and the track is a belter, built around a hypnotic three-chord riff – because all the best riffs have three chords – and really works the quiet/loud dynamic to the max.

Often, when people – particularly people in my demographic – write of the music of the 90s, it’s with a dewy-eyed nostalgia for their lost youth. Sure, I have my moments, but when I say that It Gets Worse takes me back to the 90s, I’m recalling the excitement of discovering endless obscure little bands cranking out major racket in pubs and tiny venues, some of whom managed to either get records or CDs released by shoestring labels, or otherwise scrape together funds to record and release a 7” or CD – and many of whom didn’t, and only exist in hazy recollections. The point is that these were exciting times. The only positive about living in shit times is that shit times make for good music, as people need an outlet to channel their pain, anguish, frustration, and rage. It Gets Worse is saturated with pain, anguish, frustration, and rage. And because of that, it’s very much a product of our times, and it’s absolutely essential.

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Gramma Vedetta – Don’t Cross the Line

Posted: 9 April 2024 in Reviews, Singles and EPs
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5th April 2024

James Wells

While firmly rooted in classic stoner rock, Gramma Vedetta’s latest offering, which follows on the heels of album The Hum of the Machine, which made number twenty-five in the Doom Charts (the existence of which is something I was unaware of), is an expansive, ambitious heavy prog monster of a tune. Yes, it’s over six minutes long and built around a big, swinging blues-based riff which displays elements of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but also brings in a hint of Pink Floyd in its widescreen feel. It also packs in a bunch of changes in tempo and transitions through a number of quite distinct segments.

Despite all of the elements having been done to death, ‘Don’t Cross the Line’ still feels like it’s doing something a little bit different, and, more importantly, it does what it does pretty well. Since it’s nigh on impossible to come out with something that’s entirely new – and even less likely to conjure something that’s new and remotely listenable or worth hearing – quality counts for a lot. Balancing beefy riffage with keen melody, ‘Don’t Cross the Line’ has enough to appeal to both traditionalists and those who like it with a bit of a twist, and that makes it pretty solid in my book.

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